


After the Cobras

by BlackJacketsandPens



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:26:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1247545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackJacketsandPens/pseuds/BlackJacketsandPens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of my headcanon for The Fury, after the Cobras disbanded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After the Cobras

He met her at a carnival, the winter he’d been sent home.

He’d been traveling - he couldn’t bear staying still with his thoughts and the hole in his heart. He’d caught sight of lights in the distance, fire bright against the snow and red against the night sky, and he was drawn to it, a moth to a flame like always (the familiar feeling of the fire pulling at him was almost a comfort. Almost.)

It was a group of tents, brightly colored, lit by a bonfire in the center. His boots crunched against the snow, and for a moment felt out of place - the majority of the people among the tents were children, little boys and girls bundled up and staring open-mouthed at the performers and the animals, eating candy held in mittened hands. There was a momentary stab of pain as he passed a contortionist, his mind adding long dark hair and a wicked grin to the figure before he turned away, swallowing the emotion.

“You miss him.” He froze at the voice, turning to look at the woman sitting  in the shadows of a dark indigo tent, the sign outside reading ‘ _Fortuneteller_ ’. He couldn’t see her clearly, but he somehow felt she was staring right through him.

“What?” He asked. She smiled and motioned for him to come closer, and despite himself, he did, ducking through the flap to kneel in the space. It was lit dimly by a few candles, and though he still couldn’t see her face well enough, he now saw she had red hair, the long mass of curls reflecting the firelight and turning the crimson into fire itself.

She picked up a candle, cupping it in her hands and staring at it for a moment before glancing up at him with the most vivid green eyes he’d ever seen. “You miss all of them. Your comrades. It’s very sad, what they did. I’m sorry.”

He knew he should have been angry, demanded answers, but for the past months he hadn’t even had the heart to lose his temper. And he knew what she was, he realized slowly. How she knew. “You’re reading my mind.”

She nodded. “I am.” She tilted her head slightly, studying his face. For a moment her eyes unfocused, like she was seeing something far away, and then she came back, her expression suddenly sad, but there was something fond about it.

She offered him her hand. “My name is Vasilisa. It is a pleasure to meet you, Dmitri. You’ll stay a while with us, won’t you?”

The way she said it was as if she knew he would, and he couldn’t argue with that.

———————

So of course he stayed. He helped them set up, helped them pack things away. He grew rather fond of the place, though it was bittersweet - the familial atmosphere among the performers reminding him too much of the place he most wanted to be. And there were other things that hurt, too - he could never watch the acrobats and contortionists perform, because he’d see Inácio in them all and it would open that wound all over again.

But Vasilisa was there and she understood. She seemed to know him better than he knew himself, and she would sit by him when he would stare into the bonfire, his mind far away and filled with the sounds of battle and wild laughter and the faint whine of bees, her hair ablaze with the light and her hand on his.

It was easy to love her. She was there for him, and she knew without him telling her why he hurt so much, why he was so bitter and empty and angry - not that fury he used to carry, that fury he was named for, but a quiet, broken anger, heavy and tight in his stomach. She held him, and she comforted him, and that’s what he needed.

She understood, too, that while he loved her, there was another who held a larger place in his heart, and she accepted it. She would never want to replace someone who’d made him so happy. He would never be able to thank her enough for that.

She never gave up on him, and finally one day she saw him happy. And that was when she kissed him, her lips against his smile.

————————-

They left the carnival after that, finding a place to stay and call home. She seemed to know exactly where the house was, and it was another thing he wouldn’t question.

They made a life, simple and happy. He found work, and she helped the other wives of the small community. He would never move on, but he was content.

Sometimes after they made love, she would watch him with those far away eyes she sometimes got, stroking his cheek and looking like the saddest woman in the world. When he would ask why, she just shook her head. “I’m sorry, love.” She would whisper. “I can’t tell you.”

She bore him a daughter, a beautiful little girl with her mother’s fiery hair and her father’s pale blue eyes, born on a snowy night like the one they’d met on. They named her Irina.

———————-

Seven years later, they found him. Two men in uniform at their door, and for a wild joyful moment he thought they were here to take him home to them. But they weren’t. 

They told him they wanted to send him to space. To test the shuttle that would take a man into the unknown. He told them no at first, nearly laughing in their faces. Who were they trying to fool? They wanted him dead. Who knew why this time - was it that he’d fought for America, now their mortal enemy? Was it his past misconduct? Was it that he knew too much about the men behind the curtains, or they though he did? He didn’t know, but he knew they wanted to get rid of him. And they thought dangling something he’d wanted in front of him like a carrot would work.

It did. He refused initially, of course, but they’d told him they’d be waiting, gave him an address. He’d stared at the little white card for days, looking between it and the window, out at the stars.

Vasilisa finally told him to go. “I’ve seen you among the stars, love.” She told him quietly. “You must go.”

“It’s a deathtrap.” He said softly, glancing at the little girl curled up asleep on the couch. “I won’t come back, and that’s if I’m lucky.”

She seemed to cringe, and hesitated. “I know.” She answered him. “Your future is fire.” Her voice was a whisper, and she put her hand on his cheek, and he knew what she’d seen all those times. “I see you in the stars, and I see you burning.”

He shook his head, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. “Then I won’t go. The future can be changed, right? I won’t go.”

She shook hers, more forcefully. “It will eat at you forever if you don’t, you know that. It will eat away, because even a small glimpse of the stars is a chance you want to take.” She leaned in to kiss him. “Sometimes you can change it, but this is one time you cannot. You have to go.”

So he did. Irina cried, and he promised he would be home soon - though both of them knew he was lying. As he and Vasilisa shared one last kiss, she told him softly. “You will see them again. I promise you that. You’ll see him one more time.”

Of course he believed her. You can’t argue with a psychic.

————————

The stars were as beautiful as he’d dreamed up close. But despite that, he couldn’t enjoy it. He was waiting to burn.

He knew it would happen, but that did not change a thing.

He had been burned before, plenty of times, but not like this. Nothing could compare to this. The last thing he saw before he closed his eyes - didn’t want to watch himself burn, didn’t want to watch his suit char and blacken like he knew the skin underneath was, didn’t want to deal with the pain oh god it hurt it  _hurt_  - was the Earth, the flames from the shuttle painting it with red-orange light, making it look like the world was burning.

He laughed through the pain then, laughed until he blacked out.

———————-

He woke eventually in the hospital. His burns had scarred, healed as much as they ever would, and he made the frightened tell him the year. It was 1961, she said. 1961. He had slept through five years.

He didn’t stay in the hospital, found a place to live, alone and broken. He looked in a mirror once, couldn’t look away. The only part of his face recognizable was his eyes - the rest a mass of scar tissue. He smashed the mirror, feeling nothing but numb as blood dripped from his fist.

It wasn’t long after that the news lit up with patriotic pride. First man in space, the papers said. The successful launch of the Vostok rocket. Yuri motherfucking Gagarin. He tore the paper he’d bought to shreds, the temper he’d thought long faded away rising again like an old friend and breaking the sparse furniture in the small apartment.

Fucking Russians. Fucking Philosophers. His temper subsided, and he was suddenly sad, horribly empty and he sat on the battered bed head in hands, unable to cry but wanting to so much, because he wanted more than anything in the world to be home, to be with them again. To see that grin he missed so much, to see the rest of his family.

It would be three more long, lonely years before he did.


End file.
